


City of Love

by eternaleponine



Series: Where There Is A Flame [17]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Deleted Scenes, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-05
Updated: 2017-11-05
Packaged: 2019-01-29 16:21:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12634740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eternaleponine/pseuds/eternaleponine
Summary: Luna invites Echo to go home with her to visit her family and see the sites in Europe.  Echo realizes that she may have gotten in over her head when she can no longer deny feelings she has been trying to suppress for a long time.Takes place between Chapter 169 and 170 ofWhere There Is A Flame, afterThe Happiest Place On Earth





	City of Love

Echo frowned at her phone, mentally trying to calculate what time it was back home before realizing that there was an app that would just tell her, no math necessary. After midnight in Germany was only dinnertime back in DC, she discovered, which meant it was safe to text someone without fear of waking them up. Which she would have known without checking if she'd been thinking clearly, but she wasn't. She hadn't been all day... for the last several days, really, and she suspected that people were starting to notice. Luna was too polite to say anything, of course, or maybe she just didn't want to pry. 

Her stomach clenched as she tapped out a message and hit send before she could second guess herself.

**Echo:** I think I made a mistake.

The response was almost immediate, and Echo felt tears prick her eyes, because she honestly hadn't been sure she would get one. Not that things hadn't ended amicably, but she had no right to bring this to Niylah, considering that she had made it clear that their relationship, such as it was, was over. But Niylah had said that they could still be friends, and that if Echo ever needed someone to talk to, she would be there, but those were just words.

**Niylah:** What happened?

**Echo:** Nothing. Not really. 

**Niylah:** Then why do you think you made a mistake?

**Echo:** We're leaving Germany tomorrow.

Which wouldn't mean anything to Niylah. It probably didn't mean anything to anyone but her. But she didn't know how to make her understand. She didn't have the right words. If she did... maybe she wouldn't be feeling like this. Maybe she would actually be able to do something about it. 

But she had to try.

**Echo:** As long as we're here, as long as we're staying with Luna's family, it's easy. She stays in her room and I stay in mine, and it's fine. But once we leave, we'll be sharing hotel rooms, and I don't know what will happen then. 

Seconds ticked by, and finally the bubble with the three dots appeared, telling her that Niylah was typing something. Trouble was, she wasn't sure she wanted to know what she was typing. She wasn't sure she was ready to hear whatever it was that Niylah had to say. 

**Niylah:** What do you want to happen?

Echo started to type a response, then erased it and started over, then erased it again, because she knew what the answer was, but every time she tried to say it, or type it, or even to think it, her mind threw out a dozen caveats. 

**Niylah:** You love her, Echo. You have been falling in love with her for a very long time. 

_I know,_ Echo thought, _but..._

Because there was always a 'but'. Always a reason that it wouldn't, couldn't work. 

**Niylah:** But only you can decide if the it's worth the risk. I can't decide that for you. Which is going to hurt worse: telling her how you feel and risking that she might not feel the same way, or not telling her and seeing her eventually give up on waiting and finding someone else?

**Echo:** Waiting? 

**Niylah:** Yes, Echo. Waiting. You don't see the way she looks at you, but I do. We all do. Just like we all see the way that you look at her when you think no one is watching. 

**Echo:** I don't want to ruin this trip.

**Niylah:** I get that. I do. But at the same time, how much are you really going to enjoy it if you just spend the whole time convincing yourself that you're not breaking your own heart? That you're doing her, or both of you, a favor by not saying anything? 

**Echo:** Probably not much. 

**Echo:** But if she says no, what am I supposed to do? Just pretend like everything is okay? 

**Niylah:** Will it really be any different than things are now? 

**Echo:** Yes! She won't want to be near me.

**Niylah:** I don't think that's true. But if things are bad, or weird, then you can just come home. 

**Echo:** To nothing. And no one.

She wished she could take it back as soon as it was sent, but there was no undo button. 

**Niylah:** To your friends and family who love you. Because we DO love you, Echo. Whether you know it or not. Whether you think you're worthy of it or not. We love you, and we'll help you pick up the pieces if we have to.

Echo's eyes swam, and she blinked hard to try and clear them. 

**Niylah:** For what it's worth, though... I don't think it's going to go down like that. 

**Echo:** I don't know...

**Niylah:** Faint heart never won fair maid. 

**Echo:** I'm sorry I keep doing this to you.

**Niylah:** You're not doing anything to me. 

**Echo:** You're a better friend than I deserve.

**Niylah:** You would do the same for me. Go get your girl. 

**Niylah:** And if I'm wrong, I'll be right here.

**Echo:** Thank you.

She set her phone on the bedside table and untangled her legs from the sheets, opening the door of the room that was a guest room now, but had once belong to Luna's brother, as quietly as she could. She stepped across the hall and knocked lightly on the door.

* * *

It had started in Disney. Or Epcot, really. Echo had ended up in a group that included Luna as they made their way through the World Showcase, and she'd made some offhand comment about how this was probably as close as she would ever get to actually traveling the world. 

Luna had looked at her, surprised. "You've never traveled?"

"It's not the same here," Echo had said. "In Europe you can hop on a train and in a couple of hours be in a different country. Where I grew up, you could get to another state in a couple of hours, if you drove in the right direction. Or Canada. I've been to Canada." She'd shrugged it off as if it wasn't a big deal, and up until that moment, it really hadn't seemed like one. Sure, she'd thought about traveling to other places before – she had a passport and money with which to do so, even – but she'd never done it. 

"Hm," Luna had said, and seemed to let it go. 

That night, though, she'd come to Echo's room, curling up next to her on the bed. "Come home with me," she'd said. "To Germany this summer. Come home with me."

"I—"

"We can go other places, too, if you want. As you said, a few hours in a train will get you to another country. Usually I stay ten days or so – that's about as long as I can live with my parents before they start to drive me _verrückt_ , but I haven't actually booked my ticket home, so we could spend less time there and more time traveling, and stay for longer, if you wanted."

" _Was meint 'verrückt'_?" Echo had asked. 

Luna's eyes had lit up. " _Du sprichst Deutsch?_ "

" _Ein bisschen,_ " Echo had admitted, color flooding her cheeks. " _Ich finde ein..._ " But she hadn't known how to say what she wanted to say. "I found a computer program." She had shrugged like it wasn't a big deal, but Luna had taken her hand and squeezed it, and not let go.

"All the more reason to come!" she'd said. "You can practice!"

"I don't know if I'll be able to get more time off," Echo had said, but the truth was she knew that her boss would give it to her if she asked. She was pretty much the most reliable employee he had, and the only one that he really trusted to run things when he wasn't around. He took vacations all the time, and she always made sure that the place was still standing when he got back, so he owed her. 

"But if you can?" Luna had asked. "Would you want to come?"

"Yes," Echo had said before she could stop herself. "I would want to come."

"Good," Luna had said. "When we get back you can ask, and then we'll start planning."

* * *

Now here she was – here they were – at the end of a week-long stint in Luna's childhood home, which had been mostly good, but sometimes awkward, because sometimes it felt like Luna's mother could see right through her, and that she was biting her tongue on something that she wanted to say. And she was pretty sure that they talked about her when they thought she couldn't hear, or maybe just couldn't understand. Which was partially true, but not entirely. Unfortunately, the words that she missed tended to be the ones that were most critical. 

" _Es ist geöffnet,_ " Luna said. 

Echo took some comfort in the fact that she wasn't the only one not sleeping. She twisted the knob and stepped inside, closing it behind her. Luna smiled at her and shifted on the bed, flipping back the lightweight quilt that covered it and patting the place next to her. "Can't sleep?" she asked.

Echo shook her head. She sat on the edge of the bed, but facing Luna, one leg tucked up under her. "I..." She swallowed. "There's something I need to do," she said softly. "Something... something I think maybe I should have done a long time ago."

Luna looked at her, a slight frown forming, but mostly of confusion, or at least Echo hoped that's what it was. 

Echo reached out to touch her cheek, her thumb tracing over her skin before her fingers slid to the back of her neck, cupping it lightly as she leaned in and pressed her lips to Luna's in a soft, uncertain kiss. For a second nothing happened, and then she felt Luna's lips curve as she kissed her back. 

It only lasted a moment, but when they pulled apart, Luna was smiling. "I was hoping that's what it was," she said softly. "I've been hoping for so long now, I was starting to think I had it all wrong."

Now it was Echo's turn to frown. "If you wanted—" she started, but stopped when Luna shook her head. 

"I needed you to be the one to make the first move," Luna said. "I think over the years I've come to know you pretty well, but one thing that I knew almost from the start was how much you were willing to give, and give up, for the people that you cared about. Also almost from the beginning I knew that you did care about me. I just wasn't absolutely sure what way that you cared about me, and I thought that if I made a move, you might go along with it even if—"

Echo pulled back, her back going stiff as she knotted her hands together in her lap. "You think that I would..." She didn't even know how to finish, how to say what she thought Luna was saying. Did she really think that she had so little spine that she would let herself be drawn into a relationship that she didn't actually want? 

"No," Luna said. She reached out, laying her hand palm up on the bed between them, offering the comfort of touch but in a way that forced Echo to meet her halfway. "I was sure that if it was something that you did not feel, that you did not want, that you would tell me that, and that would be the end of it. What I worried was that if you did feel something and I crossed the line from friends to more than friends, you might go along with it before you were ready because you did not want to hurt me, or to disappoint me. I didn't want to put you in that position, so I decided that if something was going to happen, it would have to begin with you."

Echo pressed her lips together, turning this over, trying to figure out what she was feeling. As much as she wanted to believe that Luna was wrong, she feared that she might have been right. Echo had spent the better part of the last two years and more putting her life back together, figuring out who she was now that she wasn't at Nia's beck and call. It had been a slower and more painful process than she would have imagined, and there had been moments, and longer than moments, that had been so dark she'd feared that she wouldn't find the light again.

But when it got bad, she would remember the words that Luna had given her, repeating the mantra over and over again until whatever was tangled up inside her eased. And when that wasn't enough, there was Luna herself, who had always answered her phone when she called, no matter what the hour, and who had sat up with her through more than one long night, a warm, comforting presence at her side even when they were just watching some dumb movie or binging a show on Netflix. 

What might she have done out of gratitude for that, if Luna had offered it? Who might she have turned herself into to be what she thought Luna wanted? And what kind of basis for a stable relationship would it have been?

She twisted the ring that she wore on her left middle finger, the one that Luna had given her off her own hand, the morning after the day that had almost been her last. 

_"Take this," Luna said, sliding the ring onto her finger and then curling her hand into a loose fist and holding it there so she couldn't immediately take it off. "If things ever get so bad, so dark that you decide that you can't do it anymore, that it needs to be the end... before you do anything, you have to give it back to me."_

_Echo blinked, looking down at the tentacles (or maybe they were arms... whatever they were, they had suction cups on them) that encircled her finger, and knew what Luna was doing, had just done, and hated her for it, and loved her for it too. Because returning the ring meant having to see her, to put it into her hand with them both knowing what it meant. It meant that she would have to actually look someone who cared – and she didn't know why, but she knew that she did – in the eye before she took any action. It meant Luna would have the chance to convince her that maybe things weren't so bad._

_"Promise me," Luna said._

_"I promise," Echo said._

Luna had pressed her lips to the ring, and Echo had done the same, the vow sealed, the deal done. 

Now Echo reached out and put her hand over Luna's, lifting it up and turning it over, kissing where a ring wasn't and hoping that she would understand anyway. 

"Come here," Luna said, or maybe she said, " _Komm hier._ " It sounded the same either way, and Echo scooted up to where Luna was, tucking her feet under the covers when Luna lifted them and settling beside her. "I love you," she said, the tip of her nose sliding down Echo's, and it was impossible to focus on her at this distance, but Echo tried. 

"I love you too," she whispered back. "I wouldn't be here without you."

"In Germany?" Luna asked. "No, probably not."

Echo pulled away enough to make proper eye contact. "You know that's not what I mean."

"I know," Luna said, her smile slipping. "But do you want us to start from dark places?"

"We already did," Echo said. "That's never going to change."

"No, I guess it won't," Luna said. Her fingers twitched in Echo's hand. "I want us to be more than that," she said finally. "You don't owe me anything, Echo. I told you that from the start, and that if you feel like you do, to pay it forward, not back." 

"I'm not... this isn't about feeling like I owe you anything," Echo said. It wasn't, was it? "When I'm with you... I feel lighter. More at ease. Like the darkness outside will have a harder time reaching me as long as you're there. And the darkness inside of me... it's easier to keep it at bay, because I know that I'm more than that darkness." She laced her fingers through Luna's and squeezed. "I know that even when you're not around, but it's easier when you are."

Luna looked at her for a long time, until Echo started to wonder if she'd said something wrong, or if Luna was rethinking this whole thing. Maybe she was. After all, what did _she_ get out of this? What did Echo give her that she couldn't get somewhere else? _Anywhere_ else, and more, and better. 

_Shit._

"Before we broke up, before he left," Luna said softly, "Derrick asked me something. He asked, 'Are you attracted to _her_ , or are you just attracted to her pain?'" 

Echo managed not to wince, or react at all, but only just barely. She wasn't sure that she wanted to hear this, but maybe she needed to. If it was going to end, better to let it happen before it had even really begun than days or weeks or months from now when Luna realized she'd made a mistake.

"I told him that I was attracted to your strength, to your loyalty, to your fierce love for those you care about. I told him that I had never met anyone who I truly believed would take a bullet for someone they loved until you. The people who are yours... you would fight for them, and you would die for them, and you would do it gladly. Which is a terrifying kind of love to be the recipient of. But also, I told him, I'm attracted to how you can be soft, and gentle, how you don't trust easily but when you do, it's completely. You don't hold anything back, ever, and that has hurt you, I think many times. But it hasn't made you bitter. Wary, yes, but what would have shut many people down completely, locked them up inside themselves, I think only made you more steadfast, more determined. And you never tried to hide yourself from me. In the wake of one of the worst days of your life, you still tried to offer me comfort. We are very different, but I think in the things that are most important, we are the same."

"You told him all that?" Echo asked, the words snagging in her throat so that she had to force them out. 

"All but the last, yes," Luna said. "That was when we knew that even though we still cared for each other, it was time for things to end."

"I'm sorry," Echo said. "I never meant—"

"Shh," Luna whispered. "I have no regrets." And then her lips met Echo's, and it was still soft, but all uncertainty, all hesitation was gone, and Echo felt something inside of her cracking and crumbling, the last thin wall of resistance she'd had, maybe, she didn't know, she didn't care, really, about anything else but the way that Luna's mouth felt against hers, the brush of her tongue over her lower lip that made her moan, the sound caught between their mouths. 

The fingers of one hand were still twined with Luna's, but the other hand was free, and she wrapped her arm around Luna and pulled her closer so that their bodies were flush against each other, breast to breast and hip to hip, and though neither of them was wearing a lot, it still felt like too much... until a loud snore, followed by a cough, jerked her back to reality. 

She pulled away, putting space between herself and Luna, and Luna started to laugh. "Your face!" she said. "It's just my father. Who is obviously asleep."

Right. Luna's father. Who was in a room close enough that if they could hear him, he could hear them... although probably not over his own snoring. Still, what if he woke up? Or her mother did? What if one of them got up to get a drink or something and heard them...

She felt Luna's fingers on her cheeks, tipping Echo's face back towards her own. She pressed her lips against Echo's softly. "You know that we are adults, yes?" she asked. "You know that we aren't going to get in trouble if we get caught?"

Echo felt heat flood her face, and she was glad of the dark so that Luna couldn't see just how red she was, although there was a good chance she could feel it. "It just feels wr—weird," she said. "Knowing they're right there."

"Mm," Luna said, which wasn't really agreeing, but she settled back, taking Echo's hands and holding them between them. "Were your parents strict?" she asked.

Echo snorted. She couldn't help it. "They let me leave home at fifteen," she said. "What do you think?"

" _Ach so,_ " Luna said. "Sometimes I forget." The fingers one of one hand slid down to Echo's wrist, and her thumb stroked over the place where her heartbeat pulsed beneath her skin, making Echo shiver. "Not that you left home so young, but that your parents let you. I guess because of the people I talk to, the problems they have, I tend to think if someone is leaving home so young, they're either running away or have been kicked out."

"Yeah," Echo said. "It wasn't either of those. I was just bored. I knew that there was more to life than just Middle of Nowhere, Almost Canada, and I wanted to find my place in it. Because I was pretty sure I wasn't meant to be a goat's milk soap maker." 

"You know how to make soap?" Luna asked. 

Echo couldn't help smiling. "Really? That's what you got out of that?" 

"It's a useful skill. In case of the apocalypse." 

Echo shook her head, sliding a little closer to Luna again now that her heart was settling. "In case of the apocalypse, we would still need land. And goats." 

"That's Octavia's responsibility, I think," Luna said, her hands sliding up Echo's arms and then around her. "Finding the land. I don't know about the goats."

"Right. The Farm of Misfit Toys plan," Echo said. Which sounded snarkier than she meant it to. Right now it was a bit of a pie in the sky, pipe dream kind of thing, but she had heard worse ideas, and she knew far worse people to get them up and running than her friends. When Octavia had heard that she'd grown up on a commune, complete with farm animals, she'd immediately added her into the plan. She wasn't sure anyone actually had a choice about their participation once Octavia put their name down on her mental list. "I guess I would have to be the one to find the goats."

"I guess so," Luna agreed. "But not tonight."

"No," Echo said. "Not tonight. Or tomorrow, or the next day, even..." Her voice trailed off as her mouth met Luna's again, and she melted into the kiss, grateful when Luna accepted the boundary she'd set and didn't try to push things further. But that was one of the reasons she loved her, wasn't it? No matter what, she always respected Echo's limits. 

Eventually, they settled in to sleep, their limbs twined, Luna's curls tickling her nose as they nested together. 

When they woke up in the morning, Luna's parents were already up. If they noticed (or had an opinion about) the fact that they came out of the same room, they didn't say anything. They just made sure that they had a good breakfast and thanked them for coming, and then hugged them both. Echo thought maybe Luna's mother held on to her a little longer than she might have, so maybe she did realize something had happened, or was happening, and maybe this was her silent seal of approval. Or maybe she was reading too much into it.

They went to the train station, and before Echo knew it, they were speeding across Europe on their way to Paris. Luna held her hand almost the entire time, pointing things out through the window when there were things she recognized, but mostly just quiet at her side, reading a magazine - _eine Zeitschrift_ \- that Echo could pick out a few words out of every dozen.   
They were able to check in to their hotel when they arrived so they stowed their bags and then made their way back out to the streets. Echo was immediately overwhelmed, but Luna seemed to take it in stride. She hooked her hand in the crook of Echo's elbow, keeping her close at her side as they navigated the streets, buffeted by crowds of people speaking more languages than Echo could count, and certainly more than she recognized, as they got closer to some of the bigger tourist areas. 

"Are we actually going to go up?" Echo asked, craning her head to see the top of the Eiffel Tower. 

"Do you want to?" Luna asked.

"The line is really long," Echo said. "But I guess the view is probably worth it?"

"We can wait and see if it gets shorter later," Luna said. "I leave it to you."

"This is your trip, too," Echo said. "It's not all about me."

Luna looked at her, an amused smile tugging at her lips. "It is, though," she said. "I've been to Paris before, and Brussels and Amsterdam. All of this _is_ for you." She pursed her lips and considered. "Well, that's not entirely true. It's for me, too, because I get the joy of seeing you experience it all for the first time. But where we go, what we do, what we see... that mostly is for you to decide." 

Echo frowned. "I don't even..." She shook her head. "If I'd known you didn't want to—"

Luna stopped walking, pulling her around to look at her. "Echo," she said. "Did I ever say I didn't want to?"

"No, but—"

"No 'but'," Luna said. "I wanted to bring you with me. I wanted you to meet my family, see my home. And I wanted – want – to show you the places that maybe you would never see on your own. If you want to do the tourist things, we can. If you would rather just walk through the streets until something catches your eye, we can do that too. I am happy either way, because I'm with you. That is the part that matters most to me, that I get to share this with you."

"I'm sorry," Echo said. "I still... spiral sometimes. Assume the worst. Don't trust that what someone says and what they mean can actually be the same thing."

"Unlearning something is a lot harder than learning it," Luna said. "But I will say it until you believe it."

Echo nodded, and then on impulse leaned in and kissed her, not caring who saw them. " _Je t'aime,_ " she whispered, which pretty much exhausted her knowledge of French, but in the moment it was enough. 

" _Je t'aime aussi,_ " Luna whispered back. 

An older woman passed them and stopped, and said something that she didn't understand, but luckily Luna did. She handed the woman her phone, and the woman started to back away. Echo lurched toward her, but Luna held her back. "She offered to take our picture," she said. 

"Oh." Echo grimaced. Would she ever learn to not assume the worst of people?

They posed, smiling at the woman, and then at each other, and then, because they were in Paris and standing in front of the Eiffel Tower, they kissed and this stranger captured that moment, too. She came over, beaming at them, and handed the phone back to Luna. They thanked her ( _merci_ also being within Echo's incredibly limited vocabulary). 

Luna smiled at whatever the woman said next and shook her head. "What?" Echo asked. 

"She asked if we were on our honeymoon," Luna said.

" _Je m'excuse,_ " the woman said, reaching out to squeeze Echo's arm. "My apologies. I didn't mean to leave you out. Have you two been together long?"

Echo shook her head. "We've known each other for a few years, but..." she smiled crookedly, "she was waiting for me to figure my feelings out, and that took longer. So in the sense that you mean, we've been together... twelve hours? Give or take?" 

The woman laughed. "Well, I hope that you will have many, many more hours together."

"Thank you," Luna said. " _Merci beaucoup._ "

"You are most welcome. Enjoy Paris, but mostly, enjoy each other." She patted them both on the arm again, and then she disappeared into the crowd. 

Luna looked at her phone, holding up the picture to show Echo. "It's actually really good," she said. "May I post it?"

Which was really asking Echo's permission to tell the world, or at least their friends, that this was happening, that they were... a they. A couple. A pair. 

"Yes," Echo said. "Go ahead." She slid her arm around Luna's waist, propping her chin on her shoulder as she put the picture up on social media with the caption: City of Love.

It was less than a minute before the first comment came in. It was from, of all people, John Murphy, and said, "Fucking FINALLY. I so called it. Thanks for winning me a bunch of money."

Echo laughed. "They were betting on us, apparently."

"Better than them betting against us," Luna said. 

Echo's phone buzzed in her pocket and she pulled it out. 

**Niylah:** I'm so proud of you, and so happy for you. 

Her eyes filled with tears that she hastily wiped away as she typed back a quick thank you. Luna looked at her and kissed her cheek. "I hope those are happy tears," she said. 

"They are," Echo reassured her. "Overwhelmed, maybe. What did I do to deserve to get this lucky?"

"Nothing," Luna said. "And it's not luck. It's not about what you do. It's about who you are. And who you are is the girl I love."

"Likewise," Echo said. She looked at the line, and then up at the tower again. "Let's go," she said, pulling her away from the crowds. "I'm sure the view is amazing, but I don't need to do all of those stairs."

"No?"

Echo shook her head, her nose brushing against Luna's as she did. "I'm already on top of the world."


End file.
